Individuals with high autistic traits focus explicitly on body parts when transforming visual perspectives

Abstract

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders are known to have difficulties with visual perspective taking. This study used a left-right discrimination task to examine whether autistic traits in typically developing individuals influence visual perspective taking. In each trial, an avatar displaying one of three postures (front, back, and front with arms crossed) was displayed on a PC monitor. For each trial, the direction (left or right) and reference (subjective, objective, or others' hand) were instructed and participants had to identify the correct side on the display. In trials with an objective reference, individuals with lower levels of autistic traits could easily project themselves onto the back view of the avatar. Individuals with higher levels of several autistic traits (e.g., attention to local detail, imagination difficulty) did not use this advantage, tending to focus body parts of the avatar as cues to discriminate directions.